


Gravity Falls: The Second Summer

by astralelegies



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Adventure, Canon Continuation, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, I can use the tags as an excuse to make lame puns if I want, Mabel Pines' Sweaters, Mild shenanigans, Mystery Twins, Post-Canon, Returning to Gravity Falls, Stan O' War II, also: attempting to save the world, apocalypse part 2, so many twos, there are two many of them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 03:42:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6640006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralelegies/pseuds/astralelegies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With their vacation drawn to a close, Dipper and Mabel return to Piedmont for their last year of middle school, while the Stans set sail for adventure on the high seas and the Gravity Falls gang return to their (ir)regular lives. But adjusting to life after the apocalypse isn't easy, and soon the Mystery Twins find themselves itching for another enigma to solve. But when one summer later a series of stranger-than-usual events threaten the already precarious safety of their beloved town, the Pines family and their friends must reunite in the face old and new enemies alike to prevent the forces of evil from taking over the universe once again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity Falls: The Second Summer

**Author's Note:**

> I finally watched Weirdmageddon Part 3 yesterday and had Many Emotions about it, and I couldn't get the idea of a post-canon continuation fic out of my head. I have written the first chapter now. My fanfic projects just keep piling up. I'm not really sure how long this will be yet--long, probably--nor how often I will be able to update, but I give that disclaimer at the start of everything I write. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy.

For something Mabel Pines had been looking forward to half her life with exuberant anticipation and, more recently, occasional bouts of terror, being a teenager turned out to be a perfectly ordinary, practically boring facet of existence. Maybe it was that she still couldn’t get over the events of the past summer, or maybe it was because she felt entirely different and utterly the same as she had been a few months ago, or maybe she’d finally realized how small her middle school felt now that she only had one more year there. Whatever the reason, her hometown was thoroughly lacking in the Excitement and Shenanigans she’d always assumed would accompany turning thirteen. Somehow nothing Piedmont had in store could quite compare to stopping a giant glowing interdimensional triangle from destroying the galaxy. 

But Mabel was nothing if not optimistic, and she wasn’t ready to give up hope quite so easily. Which was how she found herself, in the middle of her second week of classes, accidentally locked inside one of the closets in the staff break room. 

Upon reflection, it might not have been the best idea to enter the lounge without having a clear exit strategy. Grunkle Stan always said knowing how to get out of a situation was just as important as knowing how to get into one, and if worst came to worst punching a few faces never hurt. But Mabel had already tried punching the lock on the closet door and now her knuckles were swollen, so she’d decided that Grunkle Stan was wrong and punching things really did hurt sometimes. 

She pulled out her shiny new cell phone, one of the few true perks of being Technically A Teen and old enough to handle more responsibilities, to text Dipper. He was probably in the middle of something boring like extra algebra practice. He’d already signed up to join the mathletes on the first day, which Mabel would have teased him about if she hadn’t been so busy securing her spot in the Glitter Pony Decoupage and Conservation Association. She was also the newly-appointed president of the knitting club, which was going well so far. Apart from today, anyway. It was the knitting club’s fault she was stuck here in the first place. 

It had all started when they discovered the empty supply bins in the art room. Piedmont Middle School had no shortage of students, and thus it wasn’t uncommon for materials to run out, but Mabel knew something was off because she’d checked the supply bins for yarn only yesterday and found them full to the brim. Someone had taken it all. She hesitated to use the word _stolen_ , because maybe it had been an accident, or a class had been working on a particularly warm and fuzzy fall project, but just because she didn’t take Grunkle Stan’s advice about punching didn’t mean she disregarded the things he’d taught her completely. And if there was one thing she’d learned this summer, apart from the fact that opening portals between dimensions nearly always resulted in the apocalypse, it was to never rule out the option of thievery. (Grunkle Stan been referring to _himself_ being the thief in that instance, but the statement still applied.)

So she’d told the club their meeting would have to be postponed and set off to scour the halls for the culprit. It wasn’t long before she found traces of pink fibrous threads scattered across the ground, forming a trail that led to a door at the end of a second-story passage. Mabel felt her heart sink. It was the teachers’ lounge. She’d never be able to get in there. 

She heard the strains of a conversation, two adults coming closer, and ducked behind the nearest corner, trying to think. If Waddles were here she could have used him as a distraction pig, but he was hiding in her room at home because Mom and Dad didn’t know about him yet. She rummaged through her backpack for anything that might be of use, pulling out that day’s backup sweater, a design she was particularly proud of for how she’d managed to incorporate flashing lights and monster sound effects when she pressed a button. She’d made it on the bus back home in honor of surviving Weirdmageddon. It was one of her very favorites. It was also exactly the distraction she was looking for. 

Steeling herself for the sacrifice she was about to make, she waited until one of the teachers had unlocked the door, drawing back her arm slowly.

“I promise I’ll come back for you,” she whispered, then pressed the button and flung the sweater out into the hallway. It sailed past the teachers and hit a wall, bouncing into the corridor around the bend. Exchanging worried looks, the teachers hurried after it, toward what they assumed was the source of the calamity. Mabel darted into the break room, closing the door quietly after her. 

The box of yarn was sitting atop a table directly in front of her. She wondered how it had gotten there. Surely a _teacher_ hadn’t taken it, teachers didn’t _do_ those kinds of things. Deciding she could worry about that later, she snatched it up and was about to make her exit when she heard footsteps approaching the door, a murmur of _that’s funny, I thought I left it open_. The staff members from earlier were back. She searched the room for a hiding place, her gaze catching on a storage closet in the corner. She dove inside and shut the door behind her.

There was an ominous clicking sound.

Before she could worry about what it meant the teachers entered, muttering about “those damn teenage rascals.” She held her breath, praying to science or the multiverse or whatever that they wouldn’t find her. Soon enough they were gone and she tentatively tried the door, but she knew before she even touched the handle that it wouldn’t budge. 

It had locked automatically.

And now here she was, stuck in a storage closet with only a bunch of cleaning fluid bottles for company.

Dipper was a stupidpants who wouldn’t text back, so she sent him a message involving several dozen more exclamation points than her previous two. She wasn’t sure how he was going to get in, but perhaps he could use his eternal status as a huge teacher’s pet to convince one of them to let him in. That didn’t solve how he’d be able to unlock the closet door, though. 

Her phone vibrated. Her brother had made some expression of exasperation, but he was on his way, so that was good. They’d think of a way out of this together. They always did. 

Hardly five minutes later the closet door swung open, and there stood her twin, brandishing a curious metal contraption in one hand and a math textbook in the other. 

“Dipper! You made it!”

“Mabel! Are you alright?”

“I’m _great_ ,” she assured him. “I need to get this box back to the art room.”

He looked at it. “I’m not even going to ask.”

“How did you get in here?” 

He held up his device triumphantly. “It’s a lock pick Great Uncle Ford invented. He gave it to me before we left to use for emergencies.” 

Mabel stared at it, awestruck.

“So are you ready to get out of here?” 

But before either of them could move, they heard voices coming from the hallway outside. _Teachers._ A look of panic flashed across Dipper’s face, and Mabel felt her heart begin to speed faster. She forced herself to stay calm.

“What are we gonna do?” Her brother was definitely not calm. 

“Don’t worry,” she told him, “I’ll find us a way out of here.”

She scanned the room for a possible escape route. The couch in the corner was looking a little threadbare, nothing some handicrafts and a good old-fashioned dose of Mabel’s decorating ingenuity couldn’t solve. She shook her head, reminding herself that she couldn’t afford to be distracted by such things right now. Then she saw her Weirdmageddon sweater lying discarded on the ground and ran up to it, hugging it close. She made a mental note never to wear it to school again, just in case.

There was a window on the wall across from them, slightly ajar, and suddenly she had an idea. She pointed. 

“We’re going through there.”

“Are you _crazy_?” Dipper hissed. “This room is on the second floor! There’s no way we’ll be able get out through there.” 

“Not if _this_ has anything to say about it.” Mabel reached a hand into her backpack, pulling out her secret weapon. “Grappling hook!” 

“How are you even allowed to bring that on school property.”

Mabel waved a hand. “You don’t need to concern yourself with those silly details.” 

“Right.” He straightened his hat determinedly. “Let’s do this.” 

Working quickly, they stuffed the balls of yarn into their backpacks and crept to the window. Dipper peered out of it.

“You know, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” 

Mabel just shot her grappling hook at the wall and jumped, pulling her brother along by the wrist. They swung down to the grassy lawn below, Dipper clenching his fists to keep from letting out a bloodcurdling wail. 

“I am never doing that ever again,” he announced when his feet were firmly planted back on solid ground. 

Mabel clasped his shoulders. “We just snuck into the teacher’s lounge and escaped _with our lives_.” 

He offered her half a grin. “Pretty awesome, right?” 

“We’re _teenagers_.”

“I _know_.” He smiled in earnest. “And speaking of that fact, I believe it’s time for our bi-weekly PG-13 movie marathon?” 

Mabel nodded enthusiastically. “Best. Day. Ever.” 

\----

It had been the worst day ever. 

McGucket checked his equipment again to see if the readings he’d been getting were a mistake, but as he’d suspected, the machinery was functioning fine. It was the rest of the world that seemed to be in a rather more precarious state. 

If Ford would only stop chasing sea monsters for two seconds and pick up his cod-walloping phone he might actually be able to figure out what was going on here, but as it was the town still didn’t trust McGucket to be more than their endearing local crazy old man, and he’d shouted enough end-of-the-world ramblings from the steps of the city center _before_ the apocalypse that no one would pay him any attention now. He’d been hard-pressed to find a lab assistant, and he was half sure the one who had eventually turned up was really just a bunch of gnomes in disguise. But the kid seemed nice enough, and didn’t seem to mind the Fiddleford fiddle-playing meditation ritual he performed every time he got stuck with his research. 

He wasn’t here today. Sometimes he didn’t show up. If he had been here, McGucket could have told him about all the anomalies suddenly cropping up just outside of town, but he wasn’t here, and the scientist had resorted to regaling a passing squirrel with the information instead.

It really was a terrible day for a catastrophe. 

There’d been a shim-sham with the government after breakfast, something about a robot based on the schematics he’d patented going rogue and tearing up downtown San Francisco, but he had until recently always been a bit of a mad scientist and he couldn’t help it if his inventions reflected that. But of course, the CIA wouldn’t accept that as “a valid reason for the destruction of public property.” They should try designing a robot without blowing something to smitheroons and see where it got them. 

Once he’d finished with that whole debacle he’d gone down to the mansion basement he had converted to a laboratory and found his instruments going haywire. He’d been messing around with them all day, but he still had no idea what was making them act so persnickety. 

Also, he couldn’t find the box set of the anime Soos had sent him the previous week, which was making him very upset. 

There was something blam-nabbed peculiar about the whole thing, and he was determined to figure out what it meant. 

The machine to his left began emitting a high-pitched beeping sound. That probably was not a good thing. The entire row of electronics currently making calculations was vibrating slightly more than usual, which also seemed like a bad sign. McGucket could hear a metallic roar growing around him, a very definitely ominous thing. He ducked under the table in the center of the room, curling himself around one of its legs.

With a mighty _zap_ a spark sprung from his largest computer, traveling its way across the other devices in a blue streak. Their screens went dark.

Very, definitely, absolutely a most sinister thing. 

He crept out from under his shelter and inspected the equipment. Sure enough, all of it had been fried in what he was inclined to believe was unquestionably _not_ just a freak power surge.

“ _Damn_ it,” he breathed. Those machines had been his only proof. Now he was stuck without evidence in the face of a memory and reputation that were still more than a little shaky. 

He decided to try calling Ford again, hoping against hope his fellow investigator hadn’t managed to get himself into too much trouble.


End file.
